I Just Need a Programmer

"Hey, I hear you're a programmer! That's great, because my buddy and I have this idea for a business. We have everything important figured out, and all we need is a programmer to throw it together."

The sheer number of times I have been approached with this same phrase... 😂

I fell for it once, high school friend, seemed like a reasonable idea, I was early in my career and looking for experience. I did learn a lot but ultimately the business failed before it started and I got paid a few 100 for nearly as many hours work.

Good article, but I'd guess the reality is more like 25-50x as much work as non-technical people assume, and a good interface takes about 5x the work of everything else.

They don't merely underestimate the non-interface work, they greatly underestimate the interface work as well.

As a rough estimation, if you include everything (apperance, discussion, functionality, interaction with other controls, …) I would say that every single input field or button is about a day of work. And then you start to realise how many buttons there is in any GUI and how much it will cost.
- That's an interesting way to start the estimation. My first thought was 'no way', but then I thought more about it and I agree more and more. I'd bet that you get a lot of push-back from people when you use that estimate, especially those who don't understand what goes on behind the scenes.
  That doesn't mean it's wrong, just that it triggers people into a negative reaction.

Hey, could you do your job for free for me during your free time? Because I don't respect your time.
Also, I need your skills, but conversely, I believe they are wholely worthless, so I am offering literally nothing in compensation.

The words of either a sociopath or reality divorced narcissist.

there isn't that much to it

This gets to me soooo hard. If there's so little to it, why are you talking to a professional?
Surely your advanced business intellect is enough to bash out this tiny easy program?

Edit: un-inuendo'ed

Gets me soooo hard
I think I know what you meant but be aware that this can be very misinterpreted.
- Lol oops. Was so angry wasn't thinking of the innuendo.

The red flag came earlier than the author indicated.

We have everything important figured out

No, you don't.

You don't have buy-in from, seemingly, anyone. You don't have investment to pay for labor, meaning that no one except you and some other daydreamer have any faith in your idea.

Which puts your idea on par with my niece's idea to have ice cream for breakfast, and her brother's endorsement of it.

An idea being simple - even by the standard of someone without the ability to assess its simplicity - still doesn't make it a good one.

Hmmm seems like she might be on to something there!

We have everything important figured out

well that's how we know that you haven't, because if you had actually spent enough time on it to think everything through, you wouldn't be so confident about what you know and what you don't know

This isn't a software thing. This is people filtering for suckers. They want to find other people to do their work but they want to keep the value created from that work.

We're like oompa loompas to their willy wonka complex.

Hey, so, we aren't really prepared to pay. I mean there isn't that much to it, it's just a website with a database, I was hoping you could just throw it together as a favor.

Fuck you, pay me.

The three points

software is easy to write
in a business, the software is the icing on the cake
software developers are cogs in a machine, or interchangeable components of an assembly line

These are pervasive within business. There's a strong divide between business folk and workers. To business folk, they are the major part of the business. Without them, the business would not exist, therefore they deserve the higher salaries, the big cars, the nice yachts, the position, the power, the wealth. Workers of any kind would be mindless drones that implement and execute business dictations, therefore they may be replaced at will, and pay vs worker happiness can be min-maxxed.

If we want to change that dynamic, these kinds of people ("hey bro, I have this idea you can implement for me for free") should not be allowed to become business owners. Worker-owned collectives should be the future.

Just learn Python bro. It's totally not hard bro. I made websites in high school bro. Using only Excel spreadsheets bro. Just stop being lazy bro.

If that motivational speech won't inspire any business person learn programming, nothing ever will. Try it on your friends and family!

Is this view surprising to anyone?

I mean for the last twenty years, every ad on TV is telling everybody you can become a top notch programmer after SIX WEEK camp!

Hell, I fought with an old director in IT healthcare constantly because they thought everyone in the department could pick up SQL and write their own queries in their spare time and we didn't need a dedicated programmer...

SQL isn't hard to learn unless they're asking you guys to do T-SQL and PLSQL.
For simple queries it's pretty easy.
- What could possibly go wrong letting non-programmers write raw sql directly to the production db, it's pretty easy right.
- So they hit the production database or do you have it mirrored or replicated? And when everybody is running their queries overnight because the “database is slow”… not knowing SARGability? Yes, there’s a place, but “simple queries” are rarely.

This reminds me of Glootie.

Glootie is a character that first appeared in Introducing: Glootie! [..] He has DO NOT DEVELOP MY APP tattooed on his forehead.

Someone like Glootie once once asked me to develop his app. I expertly dodged the bullet by referring him to an organization that coordinates freelance developments. Someone explained to him that he'd need 1 or 2 developers plus a project manager, and probably told him typically hourly rate and number of hours for such projects. Never heard him again speak about the app.

I write embedded firmware for my own business' products and I fall into this trap myself.

I wanted to whip out a basic little product for my business thinking it would take two months of hardware design and a couple weeks of C.

A year later it's a neat little product...

This isn’t rocket science!

No. It’s computer science.

This is why I don't even ask for details anymore, just 5x my current salary with at least a 2 year contract

I see tech people doing this to sales, marketing, and bizdev people sometimes as well. I've created this thing, it's all done I just need someone to sell/market it ...

Do you mean "for free" or do you mean that tech people ask with the assumption that it's easy?
- Mostly I mean the assumption that's easy and that you can just "do sales and marketing" after the fact. Sales people are too "sales" to work for free. :-)